Learning Languages #MRTNotes

Saturday, 9 March 2024, 0845
Soundtrack: Alors On Danse - Stromae

I'm late. I'm so used to starting work at 0930 that it always throws me off when I need to start 30 minutes earlier. We humans rely a lot on our internal clocks, or what is scientifically known as our circadian rhythms. Our modern-day technologies' bells and whistles are messing up our circadian rhythms.

But at least, I got to eat my kaya toast before I left home.

Today's train has seats in every cabin. Pretty wide, too. I don't feel so bad because I'm not squishing the person next to me with my wide derriere.

It is a Saturday and I signed up to attend French classes that start at 0900. It feels like a huge throwback to my first full-time job. My working hours then were from 8 am to 5 pm on Mondays to Fridays, and 8 am to 12 pm on Saturdays. The government limits our weekly working hours to 44 hours per week (a far cry from France's 35 hours per week) and my employer took it as a requirement, not a guideline. So I worked 44 hours per week. Was I productive for all 44 hours? No.

Anyway, my classes are free (for now).

I have always attributed my love of French to discovering Stromae's Alors On Danse in 2014. But when I reflected upon it, I realised that I had wanted to do French when I was a child. At 12, after my Primary School Leaving Examination (PSLE), I scored well enough to be offered the opportunity to learn a foreign language. The hottest languages to learn then were German, French and Japanese. I had no interest in Japanese, and even less so German, and French sounded so fancy to a 12-year-old. I told my mum I wanted to take up French, to which she said no. She didn't think I would ever need it in the future, and since we live in Singapore, it would be better to learn Mandarin.

So little me took up Mandarin and failed it in the same year. I hated it.

I guess I'm just making up to my younger self, for all the things we could have done but didn't. Besides, learning French has opened up opportunities to discover cultures English hasn't massively touched.

I would go into the whole colonialism-is-the-thread-that-binds-us-all trope, but we'll get to that later.

I am aware that time is money. But I argue that I'm not losing much of it anyway, considering that I would be sleeping on Saturday mornings if I didn't have classes. If anything, I have so much more to gain.

Like learning a foreign language and pleasing my younger self! 😊